Capt.Popeye
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More pointless gibberish, adding no value to the topic or discussion. As was your first post, so is this last. And everything in between. Now if you'll excuse me, I would rather respond only when somebody says something of substance, rather than vacuous venting.
@janon: as was correctly opined else where the LCA project has been a great technological reserch project while falling short as a product. It led to developmental work in many areas which India had not even remotely approached earlier. One of them was in Material Science, notably in Composite Materials. But similarly in this very same area, there were setbacks too, notably in Metallurgy. A great part of this can be attributed to the huge behemoth that DRDO is, akin to the CSIR. In such a huge umbrella Orgn. everything happens thus leading to some deficiencies getting masked. Thus the Good hides the Mediocre. Now Scientific Research Work is very different from setting up Manufacture Process or for that matter even creating a Product. That is where Industry and End-Users need to be involved. In the case of the LCA, this did not happen. Everybody else (apart from the scientists) was either kept at or remained at "arms-length" and more. More so in the initial stages. That has never the subject of any serious analysis and rectification.
Here there were three Agencies who were "ostensible stake-holders". Designer, Industry/Manufacturer and End User/Customer. Any research into the level of synergy/co-operation between these three will be shatteringly revealing.
To start with; the Designer had nearly zero experience in the product that he was setting out to design, which is both understandable and acceptable. But inputs from the other parties were hardly (if at all) sought and received.
Just compare this to the Gnat Project (which in a manner of speaking, was India's first LCA). There was no Designer (in India) and the design had its fair share of flaws. Hence the Gnat Handling Flight/Unit was set up in Kanpur. The IAF fliers gave valuable inputs to the Manufacturer which helped to iron out the flaws one by one. Mr.E.W.Petter (the Gnat's designer and Folland Aircraft) acknowledged their role. There is no parallel in the LCA project to this endeavour. A great deal of this was due to the "attitude" of the "guys with qualifications". So the other stake-holders moved to the side-lines and remained there. It is laughable when people quote "Mil-Std" and "Mil-Spec" at every twist and turn, because they matter only when they become efficacious in application. Otherwise they are just "paper" (sometimes close to toilet-paper). In the case that I wrote about earlier: the faulty design of the FFA, it met all "paper" specs (Standards) but when it came to application, even more so in the consideration of damage-that was different.
So unlike the view(s) of someone on this board, "voices need to be heard" at least. Not to do so can be perilous. And expensive to boot.
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